Erica Eisdorfer’s new novel, The Wet Nurse’s Tale (Putnam), was released on August 6, 2009. The novel follows servant Susan Rose, a strong, independent devil-may-care woman whose dalliances with her young master get her into trouble and propel her into the wet nursing business. But a working class girl with a baby she wants to keep alive is vulnerable to the vicissitudes of social mores, scheming fathers, and the very nature of the wet nursing business in the Victorian era.

I was so taken with the novel (definitely recommended!) that I followed up with Eisdorfer in a telephone interview a couple weeks before the book’s release.

Q. Tell us how you got the idea for this story.

There were three things that were the genesis of the idea for my novel.

First, you know how you know people who were born into the wrong gender or the wrong time. I always felt I was supposed to be British, so that was part of it. I read everything [related to Great Britian]. It seems like the place I oughta be.

Second, I nursed my own kids for a long time-one till two and the other till five. With my second child, we quit so she could go to kindergarten; it was kind of a mutual decision.

Third, for most of my life, I have worked in a college campus bookstore. I’ve never been a servant, but I know what it’s like to have to cut somebody’s crusts just so, to work for people that require a certain behavior. I understood that I was bending my behavior-we all have to do that to a certain extent but that was what gave me the idea for the servant kind of thing and the class sensibility [that pervades the book]. It’s a long shot and a real servant would roll their eyes at my comparison, but my experiences as a bookseller allowed my imagination to roam, and I took it from there.